I don’t want to imply that there is no need for real estate salespeople. Of course there is. If you are selling a property in another city than the one you live in, or if you have a business or a building to sell and you think that there is more likelihood of getting the price you want if you opened the opportunity to purchase it further a field than the region you live in, it would help if you tried to sell through an agency, but I question whether it is necessary to give any agency an exclusive right to sell unless they are prepared to pay for the marketing costs.

However, unless you have serious problems communicating, or are perhaps bed ridden or confined to some sort of institution, if you are selling a house you live in, you should be able to sell it yourself. And even if you do have trouble communicating, or are bedridden, or whatever, there is no reason why you couldn’t get a trusted friend or relative with basic common sense to answer the phone and show people through the house for you, because apart from estimating the sale price, advertising and signing an agreement for the sale and purchase of the house, that’s about all that is involved with selling a property. Unless it is an investment property, very rarely does anyone purchase a house because a real estate sales person talked him or her into it.

The common practice of prospective house purchasers is to first search for them on the Internet - particularly ‘TradeMe.co.nz’ or "Real Estate.co.nz" in New Zealand. When they discover properties that appeal to them, purchasers generally inspect the houses during open home viewing times. It is then that prospective buyers decide for themselves whether the house is one they want to buy or not. There is really no selling involved. When a buyer does decide to make an offer and the offer is accepted, the transaction is given over to lawyers to handle.

Agreements to buy and sell are usually prepared by sales people, but some lawyers will prepare them without charging, provided that they will be handling the transfer of ownership papers after the agreement is signed by both parties.